Tag: singapore

The new Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is announced and will be available in Q2. The new Tab S3 now comes with the S Pen for even more versatility. Yes, it is like the Apple Pen.

Capturing Ideas On The Go

The Galaxy Tab S3 features an Improved S Pen that feels and works like a real pen. Featuring an elastomer 0.7mm pen tip with industry-leading sensitivity that recognises 4,096 levels of pressure and a slide-proof 9mm comfortable and stable grip, the enhanced S Pen grants users a more natural handwriting experience. It resembles a full sized pen which would allow you to quickly jot notes on the go with Tab S3. By incorporating some of the best ideas from the Samsung Galaxy Note series, I think it provides for a useful added dimension to the stagnating Android tablet market.

Users can quickly and easily bring their ideas to life whenever inspiration strikes, by simply using Screen Off Memo and pinning the memo to Samsung Notes, all without unlocking the screen. Consumers also have the option to pin their memos to the Home Screen and view it whenever they want.

Keeping notes, sketches and drawings organised is now easier than ever with Samsung Notes. With the addition of specialized brushes for Chinese calligraphy, watercolour, and oil drawings – users can mix different colours and quickly switch between brushes and pens to express their artistic talents.

With the Smart Select function, users can use the S Pen to easily create and share GIF animations while the Air Command functions, such as Magnify and Translate, allow users to hover their S Pen over an image or word to zoom in or even translate languages. Air Command also allows users to annotate PDF files with the S Pen so they can add notes directly to the document with ease. For added convenience, users can access their favourite apps in an instant just by tapping on a shortcut via the S Pen while the new Glance function allows users to minimise one app in the corner should they need to refer to information from another app.

New Tablet, New Specifications

If you watch a lot of shows on your tablet, and I am sure there are many, you would be pleased to know that the new Tab S3 comes equipped with Quad Speakers tuned by AKG by HARMAN for a premium listening experience, allowing users to enjoy multi-channel audio on-the-go. With its auto rotate stereo capabilities, consumers will be able to hear rich sound from the corresponding speakers based on the device’s orientation.

For the first time in Samsung’s tablet history, the Galaxy Tab S3 sports a Metal and Glass finish – a signature of Samsung Galaxy smartphones. The look and feel of the reinforced glass is complemented by scratch-resistant, anodised AL5000 series aluminium for enhanced durability.

Out of the box, it runs on Android Nougat. It runs on a Samsung Exynos chip (seems to be the same as the Galaxy S7) with 4GB ram. Storage is 32GB but allows for expansion with a microSD. The display is on 9.7-inch QXGA Super AMOLED display the Galaxy Tab S3 offers users an immersive viewing experience. The Galaxy Tab S3 also features a 10bit HDR video playback so consumers can enjoy a wide range of stunning HDR videos with richer colours and greater contrast.

For times when a pen is not good enough, there’s a new Samsung keyboard accessory that uses POGO pins. It’s similar to the iPad Pro keyboards too.

Local Pricing and Availability

The Galaxy Tab S3 will be available in Q2 2017 in Black and Silver with both Wi-Fi® and LTE versions at major Consumer IT & Electronics stores, Telecommunication Operators, Samsung Experience Stores, and Lazada Singapore.

The pen built for fiddlers. Quotidian is a world’s first magnetic propulsion pen. I think springs or caps work fine, but I do agree, it’s something quite magical to watch the pen nib propel out when you bring the cap to the body. Each Quotidian contains super strong axially magnetised rare-earth magnets, which sound way cooler than Neodymium magnets, which allows it to function. They are indeed very strong and quite fun to mess around with.

That’s until you lose the cap though – good luck with using your pen after that.

Pokemon Go is still not launched in Singapore but there is a new way to play it on your Windows PC with KOPLAYER. This China company is marketing its Android emulator as a way to play Pokemon Go.

Afraid of going out into the streets in this not-so-safe world we live in? Considering the possibility of bad traffic, poor road conditions and car accidents? Sick of battery issues? They are now introducing a new way to play Pokemon GO on your PC computer in a safe way with a bigger screen and more fun via KOPLAYER Android emulator.

Based on augmented reality, just about everyone has heard about this game. Hundreds of those adorable, yet ferocious, little creatures have invaded our real world, well except Singapore, Malaysia, and a whole lot of other countries really, so you would need to spoof your location in order to play the game. You may get banned though, so you may want to check out how not to get ban while spoofing your GPS location on Pokemon Go.

With KOPLAYER, it is all setup to play Pokemon Go. The APK is a click to download, and the location is pre-set to Sydney Australia. Pokemon GO gamers can use their keyboard to control and move in a convenient way. Click keyboard setting to use the WASD keys then you can walk anywhere on the map without going outside to waste your battery and date usage.

It’s really easy to use. I would only advise you not to use your actual Google account, you never know what information is transferred through the app. The app should be released in Singapore really soon though.

“We expect it to be released by the end of July.”

Going by Niantic CEO, John Hanke’s words, it is almost certain that the rest of the Asian countries including Singapore, India, Malaysia, China and others would be getting the official game release in the next few days.

Huawei P9 is the latest flagship phone introduced early this year, along with P9 Lite & P9 Plus. Huawei is commonly known to be introducing flagship-standard phone at a much affordable price. P9 is no exception with its retail price of $768 during their first launch. It is one of the most affordable flagship when you consider the fact that it is the easiest entry to get yourself into the Leica bandwagon.

At 6.95mm, Huawei P9 is the slimmest flagship phone introduced this year so far. Consider it an achievement as Huawei managed to squeeze in a 3000mAh battery and managed to avoid the dreaded camera bump at the back of the phone.

On the back of the P9, an additional fingerprint sensor was added, a great improvement from last year omission from Huawei P8 where fingerprint sensor are becoming mainstream on flagship devices.

5.2 inches display are vibrant and sharp despite only having the resolution of Full HD 1920×1080. At screen PPI of 423 pixels/inch, it is almost impossible to distinguish each pixel from a usual viewing length and angle.

Performance
Huawei is one of the only few companies that produce their own chipset for their devices, P9 is using brand new octa-core Kirin 955 CPU, an slight upgrade from previous Huawei Mate 8.

Daily usage proven to be smooth & responsive despite the fact that benchmarking are considerably lower than other flagship running on Snapdragon processor.

Huawei’s own power manager are able to identify the power-hunger application and shut it off when needed, along with Android 6.0 Marshmallow’s Doze function. Users of Huawei P9 are able to get a decent amount of screen on time without reaching for the charger in the midday. Huawei P9 will be available with 32GB/3GB RAM & 64GB/4GB RAM version. With the help of Huawei’s Power Manager, I did not experience any occasion where application are forced close due to lack of memory. I am able to run multiple app at once without any lag.

Leica-certified Camera

Duo camera phone has been here for years, from 3D camera to purely creating bokeh effect, no one seems to have an idea what to do with the second rear camera. Unlike others phones where the second rear camera are often an assistance to create effects, Huawei P9’s second camera can actually work on its own. The co-development with Leica results in one of the most interesting duo camera set up so far – a pure monochrome camera.

Leica users should be familiar with their monochrome camera series that only shoot in B&W. Huawei P9 works exactly like that without a color filter array on the sensor, hence the sensor is able to take in as much lights as possible.

With the duo camera setup, P9 is said to be able to capture 270% more light than typical smartphone these days despite the fact that the F stop is at F2.2 for both 12 megapixels sensor.

Focusing is assisted by laser focus to provide fast focusing. Duo-LED flashlight are also here for your night shooting need, though I would not recommend using any flashlight for shooting on phone but the overall quality remains acceptable.

Monochrome camera

Only one word to describe the monochrome camera performance – Stunning. Details are kept to their best – as opposed to taking a color photo and covert it to B&W. Check out the monochrome photo sample below!

RGB camera

The usual camera benefits from the help of monochrome camera & laser focusing. Color turns out to be accurate and night time shot does not suffer from shutter lag.

Wide Aperture Mode

Huawei P9 make use of the duo camera set up to produce a realistic bokeh – RGB camera taking the usual shot while monochrome calculate the focal distance. With P9’s top tier processor & camera application, you are able to view the bokeh effect live while shooting photos without any lag. Noted that the effect can be best achieve within 2 meter distance.

Pro & Other Modes

The overall UI are different from usual Huawei phone we’ve seen so far. With the collaboration with Leica, the camera UI has been revamped with the standard Leica interfaces.

While the amount of different mode seems to be overkill, there are a good reason to it.

Pro mode is available for both RGB & monochrome camera. Photographers will appreciate the whole range of customizable setting similar to a standard DSLR.

Swiping left & right on the camera app will brings you to various mode (HDR,Night mode & time-lapse, to name a few)

I particularly love the light-painting mode. In light-painting mode, there are four different choices given – Trail lights, Light graffiti, Silky water & Star track. What sets P9 light-painting mode apart from pro mode is that P9 took the photo in right exposure first, and you are freely to add in any lighting effect for almost an unlimited time period without risking the photo being over-exposed.

(Trail lights)

(Light graffiti)

(Silky Water)

Conclusion

With the expectation of camera innovation raised so high this year. Huawei P9 has proven to be a worthy contender for this camera race for 2016. Along with the affordable price, slim design & Leica-certified camera, it is hard not to recommend Huawei P9 to everyone this year.

Bonus

Do you know that Huawei is the first to introducing a warranty scheme that last more than one year?

You are able to get up to two year of prestige warranty for your Huawei P9, along with one year of free screen protect (changing of screen within one year due to screen crack). Huawei also provided a Google app called HiCare (installed on P9) that can provide you with more tips & contacting services to ensure you that Huawei is always there for you when you required assistance.

Samsung Pay is officially launched in Singapore. They have partnered with the major banks in Singapore, POSB/DBS, Standard Chartered, OCBC, and Citibank, and there’s a whole lot of advertisement budget to encourage usage. Read on to find out how to maximise your rewards and get up to 25% cashback and free Samsung accessories, you may even win a phone!